Finding Waldo
by DigitalHex
Summary: Somehow, I turn into a Fire Warrior... This is a little odd. But there's no time to explain! FIRE AWAY!
1. Chapter 1

Finding Waldo

_Digital_Hex_

**Chapter One**

"SHOOT THEM!" I bellowed as my feet touched down on a dusty patch of stone, legs recoiling as I let loose with a fierce salvo from my plasma rifle. The super-heated pulses traced after the retreating Space Marines, clipping one in the pauldron and tearing a smoking hole through his shoulder. He fell to the ground hard, but the other marine dropped off the side of the ravine, where I imagined him to be sliding down into the sea of sand.

The marine I'd clipped tried to stand back up, but a sudden hail of blazing pulse fire slammed into him, shredding the power armour and slaying the marine inside.

I looked over to see my bodyguard nod at me, the quad barrels of his burst cannon slowing in their cycles as the tips let out a light stream of smoke. I nodded back at him.

My ear piece beeped. I activated the comm, waving for the red shirt with the burst cannon to go check on the dead marine and look like he was doing something productive. He hopped up and flipped on his thrust pack, jumping over to the human corpse.

"Wal'do here," I growled. My deep, chiseled voice tore through the communications device, the true definition of masculinity.

"Dude. The. Fuck."

I rolled my eyes as a holographic display of the battlefield appeared in front of me. Small dots of blue and red popped up on the field. There were about thirteen red dots huddled around in the very center of the battlefield, but seven blue dots were scattered all over the field.

"Your Riptide just head-shotted me. What the Hell."

I chuckled.

"So that nets me slay the warlord, right?"

I heard an irritated chuckle over the comms.

"Yeah, you got me. It's turn four, I have two squads of tacs left, both are hurt, one is holding an objective, and only have first blood-"

"Where as I have Slay, Linebreaker, and an objective myself. Oh, and your command squad just ran off like a pansy."

"Fuck you."

"Any day," I retorted. "Game?"

"Game."

I whooped as I threw my hands up in victory. Across the table, my Marine Corps buddy groaned at my obnoxious display of enthusiasm. Around the store, I received similar, if more annoyed, responses from the other gamers.

"Suck it Imperial fools!" I cackled.

"Hey, they didn't do too bad this time," my friend argued. "At least I didn't roll three consecutive 1's in a single phase..."

I walked over to him to slap my hand on his shoulder. "Fuji, in your defense, I did have some lucky rolls this game. I'll give you that."

Fuji rolled his eyes in amusement. "Eh, 4-5 isn't bad, considering my army is at least fully painted."

I huffed. "Hey, base coat is a beautiful shade."

"Yeah," Fuji laughed, "Too bad they aren't gray knights-"

I took a defensive step backwards. "Hey, we agreed to never talk about that again."

Fuji opened his mouth to throw another jab at my poor reasoning attempts from the past, but we were interrupted as a tall man in a black suit picked up on of my Tau fire warrior models, examining the model. The model was just base-coated in gray Krylon, nothing special.

But this guy. He'd never been in the hobby store before. I would know; I was here all the time.

I gave him a curious look as he continued examining the model. He was really soaking it in.

"Uh... hey?" I said sharply.

He smirked a grin, casting his eyes towards me. They were an icy blue, and I could swear I saw them flash yellow briefly. That could have just been my imagination, though.

"You are the owner of this model, yes?" the man asked as he held out the model.

I nodded as I gave another look at the model. I couldn't help but crack a smirk. The fire warrior had been converted so that he was punting a Space Marine helmet while flipping it off. It was crude, it was stupid, but it was funny.

"Yep, that's mine."

"Neat," the man commented. His voice was scratchy and sharp, like dragging wet fingers across stainless steel.

"Yeah..." I droned as he continued looking over my army. He seemed quite amused.

"Was there something we could help you with?" I asked.

"Oh, I was just hoping to see a game."

"You just missed ours, actually," Fuji informed him. Mr. Nameless nodded pensively.

"Such a shame. I was rather hoping to see your... expertise," he said.

I chuckled. "Well, I'm a pretty good player, and while I could beat Fuji every day of the week-"

"Hey!" Fuji growled.

"- I know he's pretty good, too!"

The mysterious stranger smiled. "Is that so?" he asked with a slowly growing grin.

I nodded.

"Then perhaps you would like to play a game against me, then?" he asked, directing the question at both me and Fuji.

I shared a glance with Fuji. He seemed to want to entertain the idea. It had to be better than playing against the LEGO titan dude, for sure...

I looked back at the weird man, shrugging my shoulders.

"Sure, why not. We got time."

The man's smile grew wider, and it was then that I realized he had very long, sharp needles for teeth. His eyes grew full black as he took a step towards us.

"Then let us begin."

He suddenly tossed my fire warrior model at me. I growled as I reached up to grab it-

_BOOM!_

I body went flying past me as the force of the explosion threw me back.

"What the fuck-" I screamed, but the sudden force of my back slamming into a wall pushed the air straight out of my lungs.

The air was thick and humid around me. I felt heavy clothes sticking to my skin. The ringing of constant gunfire filled my ears, and my nostrils were filled with the musk of sweat and burning flesh.

What the Hell had just happened?!

"Shas'la! Get off your bum and start firing!"

I grit my teeth and turn my head. Immediately, my stomach quivers.

There's a Fire Warrior standing three feet from me.

Wut.


	2. Chapter 2

Finding Waldo

_Digital_Hex_

**Chapter Two**

"Shas'la! Did you hear me, damn it?!" the Fire Warrior screamed, his orange Tau sept armour almost getting brighter in anger.

I looked around. Was he talking to me?

"Uh, are you talking to me?" I asked, pointing at myself.

He face-palmed. Like, full on, smacked himself in face as hard as he could. Wait, I'd seen that pose before...

"YES!" he bellowed.

Yep. I knew who this was. Which was completely impossible, but I still know who this was.

I had a model of a Fire Warrior who was the Shas'ui of one o my Fire Warrior units. He was face-palming... exactly like he'd just done. Like, if I'd taken a picture of him face palming, with his knees slightly bent and hips cocked to the side just so, it would have perfectly matched the model.

"Paul'so?"

"You will address me as Shas'ui, damn Shas'la!" he barked.

"Damn brah, you're a little crotchety there, aren't you?"

Paul'so tore off his helmet as he stormed over to me, wrapping his thick fingers around my throat and hoisting me up.

"WE ARE ALL THAT REMAIN OF FIRE TEAM FLAMINGO AND YOU'RE CALLING ME CROTCHETY?!"

I couldn't help it. I snickered.

"Flamingo?" I asked the blue alien in front of me. "That's really the best you have? Flamingo?"

This was a dream. A really life-like dream for sure, but a dream. It had to be.

Paul'so slapped me across the face with the back of his hand. I realized I wasn't wearing a helmet myself, as it hurt pretty bad.

It hurt.

Dreams don't hurt.

I was literally being bitch-slapped by a fire warrior.

A WEAPON SKILL TWO FIRE WARRIOR!

I pushed Paul'so away from me.

"Hey, back the fuck off!" I yelled, reaching for my gun. Pulling it out, I leveled my Pulse Rifle dangerously near him, keeping the barrel pointed a safe distance away from him.

"There we go, there's some spark, kid!" Paul'so growled, smirking. It seemed that me threatening him made him excited.

I liked this guy.

Okay, so I was a Fire Warrior now. Sure. That made total sense.

Suddenly, a sharp bolt of red light bled between Paul'so and I, biting a hole into the concrete wall beside us.

I looked over to see a unit of guardsmen running full speed towards us, guns drawn and blazing-

And I continued to watch as many of the shots flew short of us, smashing into the lower wall of our structure.

I sneered.

"Conscripts," I muttered. Within seconds, they were close enough that I could hear a good number of vulgar profanities being hurled towards us, most likely the most dangerous of their weapons.

I rolled my eyes as I spun the end of my rifle to face them, then pulled the trigger. I expected a mighty recoil from the fearsome gun, but instead was treated with a tame shudder as field after field of charging energy broke from the edge of the barrel, sending screaming rounds of Pulse fire into the bodies of the guardsmen.

If the conscripts' shooting was what came from ballistic skill two, then mine had to have been at least a four. The rifle was so easy to handle, I just had to keep the stock resting on my shoulder and the spread from the fire landed a hit almost every time. Sure, I was a little high or low a few times, but twenty-three shots later, and twenty conscripts were conveniently sporting massive head wounds.

As in, I'd gibbed them in their fugly mugs. Suck it IG.

Paul'so gaped at me in awe.

"You... you are a true marksman, Shas'la..."

I shrugged. "Not really, aiming isn't very hard with these. I'm used to more recoil, honestly."

Paul'so opened his mouth to say something, but suddenly we were thrown from our feet as the package from an earthshaker cannon crashed and detonated not too far from us, tossing us through the air.

"FUCK!" I screamed as I smashed against the concrete wall again. I pried myself off of it and took a good look at where exactly I was. It looked like the stone entrance to a library or large office building, with a really big fancy concrete wall and small concrete fences encircling it. We were deep in the middle of a big city, I could tell. There were many tall buildings all around us.

"Why are the Imperial Guard shooting at us?!" I bellowed at Paul'so as another round of the earthshaker cannon smashed down a safer distance away from us, tearing a nice crater into the pavement. Dirt flew everywhere. He must have been firing blind, that meant full scatter...

"We told them to surrender to the greater good, but they dared deny our expansion!"

Now it was my turn to facepalm.

"Seriously? That's it?"

Paul'so nodded with vigor as we hugged the wall. We waited for the next earthshaker round.

"That's it," I said while throwing my hands in the air. "Obviously I'm high on some shit. How do I leave?"

This was bullshit. Suddenly a Fire Warrior fighting the Imperial Guard on some stupid planet for the most cut-and-dry stereotypical of Tau reasons? Really? I quit. It was a fun game, but this was kind of stupid.

"Leave?" Paul'so asked. "You don't just leave! We almost have the relic!"

I groaned out loud. We were playing a mission of the Relic?!

"F_iii_ne," I whined as I slung my rifle over my shoulder. "But I want a promotion after this."

Paul'so held his pulse carbine at the low and ready position. "If you can keep shooting like that, you just might."

I winced at the poor dialogue. Were the Tau seriously this cheesy? I mean, I know we have Riptides and that type of cheese, but this... I expected this corniness from Eldar, not Tau.

"Sure thing, boss!" I said in a poor mockery of an ork voice, and followed after Paul'so. We indeed were the only remaining members of our squad, but now I could see that first-hand.

Three Fire Warriors with a small pink flamingo on their shoulder pieces lay crumpled against the lower wall, chests riddled with las-burns. It looked like the conscripts had done more than I'd thought of them. Did that mean Paul'so and I's little argument had been our leadership check?

"Check the scanner for the Relic's location," Paul'so commanded. I cocked an eyebrow.

"Uh... scanner?"

"On your _BELT_," Paul'so growled. He really was like a crotchety old man... even though he was probably only, like, twenty or so. Lol.

I looked down and sure enough, clipped to my belt next to six disc-like grenades was a small rectangular scanner. I pulled it off my belt and flipped a switch on the side. Immediately, a small LED screen lit up, a grid appearing on it in thin green lines. A small blue blip I assumed to be us was only a short distance from a yellow square, only a couple blocks away. That was probably the relic.

"It's two blocks that way," I said as I pointed in the direction of the relic.

Paul'so nodded and led the way. I followed.

None of this was real, right? I kept asking myself that as we slowly made our way through the ruins, weapons drawn and at the ready. I kept myself entertained with the idea that this was just some weird trip I was on... even though I never tripped on anything other than my two feet-

Curious, I looked down. Sure enough, instead of feet, I had two odd-looking blue hoof-like things jutting from my ankles. Awesome.

"This day just keeps getting weirder and weirder," I mumbled. Paul'so didn't hear me, but he decided to try and start up a little conversation.

"So, Shas'la, what is your given name? Where are you from?"

I thought hard. I could give him my real name... or I could have a little fun...

"I am Wal'do," I said while trying to keep from cracking a grin, "And I hail from Non'ya."

Yes. I went there. Good jokes never die.

Paul'so, though, obviously didn't get my joke. "Ah. Shas'la Wal'do of Non'ya. Very good."

Nope. This couldn't be real. Nobody could honestly be stupid enough to think none ya was a place.

This was going to be rough.


End file.
